This is a rolling hill, and the heavy snow for several days has covered the hill with a layer of plain silver.
Now, it doesn't seem to be any different.
But Angel remembered that when he first arrived at the Watch Fortress, he once stood on the tower and looked at it. It was pitch-dark, barren and bleak.
This is Shadow Hill.
Through the clues given by Popota, Angel came here.
Because there is a river in the Hill of Shadows, if you are lucky, you will occasionally find the turbulent silver ring here. In addition, the Hill of Shadows is near the fortress and can be seen with the naked eye, which is considered a safe area. Therefore, from time to time, apprentices come here to explore opportunities in their spare time.
Just yesterday afternoon, Popota and two of his friends were wandering around Shadow Hill.
Then they saw Toby here.
"At first, I saw it fishing on the river with its bird's beak chiseling ice, and then it seemed to have nothing to gain, so it flew away. As for where it went, I didn't pay attention, because the snow was too heavy and the sky was dark, and it flew away. As soon as it blends into the sky, you can't see anything clearly."
This is Popota's rhetoric.
Although others didn't really see it, Dusky did see Toby flying into the sky, so it can be roughly judged that Toby still appeared in the Hill of Shadows just yesterday afternoon.
Angel immediately looked for it.
After he came to the Hill of Shadows, all he could see was the ups and downs of snow, and the sky was constantly snowing. It was not so easy to find Toby's trace here.
The first place he went was what Popota had said, the river where Toby was fishing.
At the valley of the snowy hill, a fairly spacious river has frozen over at this time, and there are occasionally snow-covered fish baskets on the shore. It can be seen that there are still many people coming to this creek.
Popota found that the place where Toby was cutting the ice was a curved river channel under the cliff of the ice wall, and there were two trees with intertwined branches like acacia on the opposite bank.
The features are obvious, and it didn't take Angel long to confirm the location. However, after the night passed, even if there were holes, the river surface had re-frozen with ice.
However, according to the thickness of the ice layer, Angel still confirmed the place where Toby had drilled before.
He tried to reopen the hole, but the water below was still flowing. If you listen carefully, because the air was poured in from the hole, some fish began to gather under the hole.
Angel has no intention of fishing now. When he was about to leave, he found that a black thing seemed to be frozen in the ice.
He opened it curiously and took out the black thing that looked like a small fan.
After licking it, there was a smoked and salty smell.
"This smell is... the dried small fish smoked by the head maid of Mana?" Angel rubbed it and removed the ice sand on the surface, and found that it was actually a fish tail.
This is obviously Toby's thing. It is estimated that when Toby was digging holes and fishing here, he did not forget to eat small dried fish.
What Angel can be sure of now is that Popota and the others did not lie.
However, although the leftover fish tail was found, where would Toby go
Angel thought for a while, found a high ground, and released several probe puppets. Metal balls with eyes flew out in all directions.
"If you can't find Toby even if you can't even detect the puppet..." Angel murmured to himself, then he could only ask Sanders for help.
Detective puppets are all over the Hill of Shadows, and because of its small size, many hidden objects can be explored, which is much faster than Angel's exploration.
Not in the east, not in the west.
The snow is getting heavier and heavier, and Angel's expression is becoming more and more solemn. He is a little doubtful now. Could it be that Toby was too comfortable in the abyss, played crazy, and ran away from the safe zone
A little bit of time passed, just when Angel made up his mind to return to the fortress and seek Sanders' help, he suddenly found that a probe puppet showed two shrinking figures.
It was a man and a woman, they were wearing apprentice robes, and they were running down the slope of a hill tremblingly.
Their faces were pale, their hair was frosted, and their lips were gradually turning blue, as if they had been frozen... However, Angel remembered that all the apprentices who came to the front line, Shuangyue distributed wizard robes with a constant temperature effect.
He looked carefully, only to find that there were obvious holes in the robes of the two apprentices. Moreover, there were bloodstains and scratches, and it looked as if it had only been through a battle.
Judging from the expressions on their faces, they were also panicked, and they turned their heads from time to time to confirm that there were no chasing soldiers behind them, and they breathed a sigh of relief.
Doubt flashed in Angel's eyes: not to mention what happened to them, so that they were so panicked. What bothered him the most was, how did these two come out
The scout puppets had flown all over the shadowy hill before, but they didn't find them at all, they seemed to appear out of thin air.
Could it be that there are some hidden passages here
Angel thought for a while, a faint light flashed on the boots, and the next second appeared in front of the two people who were still a little frightened on their faces.
Angel's appearance immediately aroused the vigilance of the male apprentice and stood in front of the female apprentice beside him.
Judging from the actions of his guards, Angel thought, these two are probably a couple
Angel took off his hood and revealed his face: "I just came from the fortress, and I found you."
Angel's appearance was still a little boyish, and the gentle smile on the corners of his mouth made them relax a little bit.
Seeing that they were slack, Angel said again: "It seems that you guys need some help?"
Angel took out a fiery red ball and a broken fire stone from his arms. This thing was obtained from the fire bone witch in the battle of the ember earth rock. It's not very useful, but it's very convenient to use for heating.
Angel put the broken fire stone in the palm of his hand: "I can give you this, but I need you to answer a few questions for me."
The two looked at each other with a hint of joy in their eyes.
Both of them are intermediate apprentices. After the previous escape, not only the wizard's robe was broken, but the magic source in the body was also empty, and there was no way to even summon fire elements to keep warm.
Although it is not far from the fortress, they are already exhausted, plus the wind and snow, maybe they will not die in the hands of those flying fish monsters, but will freeze to death in Shadow Hill.
Unexpectedly, when they were desperate, they met Angel.
They dare to come to the abyss, and naturally they also know the "broken fire stone". Don't look at this in Angel's eyes, it's useless, but to them, it's at least more than a hundred magic crystals!
Now, just by answering a few questions, they can get this item that can keep warm and sell at a good price, how could they not agree.
They nodded without hesitation.
…
After a long while, Angel's eyes lit up. Not only did he get the information he wanted, but he might even get news from Toby, so he threw the Broken Fire Stone in his hand without hesitation.
Such a handsome female apprentice stretched out her hand to take it, but as soon as her hand was stretched out, she stumbled a bit, and the fiery red ball fell into the male apprentice's hand.
After the male apprentice got it, he immediately looked at the female apprentice worriedly: "It's okay, be careful, there may be gravel in the snow."
While talking, he helped the female apprentice up, and at the same time he muttered: "Put the fire stone first with me, I am very angry, you can rely on me to point it."
The female apprentice wanted to say something, but the male apprentice interrupted it forcefully, and then bowed to Angel, "Thank you for your kind gift, Sir, we will go back to the fortress first."
After all, he embraced the blushing female apprentice and walked towards the fortress.
Angel turned his head, squinted his eyes, looked at the figures of the two who were gradually disappearing in the snow, and tutted twice in his mouth.
Angel knew the reason why the female apprentice staggered before. It was the male apprentice who did it. Not only did he grab the broken Fire Passing Stone, but he also took advantage of the situation to grab the female apprentice, but he didn't suffer at all.
The male apprentice whispered to the female apprentice in the wind: "This thing is quite expensive. When I go back, I will sell it and give you half of the magic crystal..."
Will the male apprentice really distribute the sold magic crystals
Angel didn't know the answer, but from the male apprentice's glowing eyes after seeing the Fire Stone, I guess... It's difficult.
Before, the male apprentice seemed sincere to protect the female apprentice, but he didn't expect that the betrayal would be so fast.
Angel shook his head, no longer thinking about other people's affairs, but his eyes flashed brightly, and he walked towards the top of the hill.
Just now, from their mouths, Angel learned some secrets about the Hill of Shadows.
Speaking of it, it is not a secret of true knowledge, but there are very few people who know about it, and the scope of dissemination is limited.
It is said that on the other side of the hill, in a hollow of a dead tree, there is a secret passage. The secret road leads to a cave under the hill. The name of the cave is Shadow, and it is also the source of the Hill of Shadows.
It is rumored that every once in a while, strange white shadows will appear on the Hill of Shadows, and baby screams will be heard, like ghosts.
There was a lot of buzz among the apprentices, but in reality, these white shadows were the white smoke evaporating from the geothermal springs in the Shadow Cave, and the baby screams came from some kind of long swimmers in the cave that regularly swam from the underground channel. Beard fish.
Although the shadow cave is hidden, there are still some people who know it, but the underground rivers in the cave produce more turbulent silver rings. For their own interests, many people even know about it and don’t say it to the public.
The previous apprentice of the couple went to the Shadow Cave to look for the Silver Ring of Twisting.
When they went to the Shadow Cave this time, they were originally searching along the underground river, but they encountered some changes on the way. The ink-colored flying fish monster that came from nowhere suddenly attacked them like crazy.
These flying fish monsters are at most the level of junior apprentices, but they can't bear the large number, and the wizard's system recovers very slowly here, so they eventually lost, and then escaped.
These are the experiences of the couple's apprentice, nothing out of the ordinary.
However, Angel got a clue from them, and this clue is likely to point to Toby.
Although they didn't see Toby in the Shadow Cave, the female apprentice was extremely sensitive to sounds, she said, and she said she seemed to have heard birdsong from the depths of the cave during her escape.
Angel imitated Toby's voice with the technique of sound and illusion, and the female apprentice said very firmly after listening to it.
"That's the tweet!"